Man o Man
I always laugh when I hear people say "its the middle of summer and its 20 degrees and pouring down" followed by "so much for global warming" or "this last summer wasn't half as hot as last year".
I'm sorry to say but comparing annual temperatures from the past to present is not a measure of global warming.
The ONLY measure and I say ONLY measure is Amounts of Carbon released into the atmosphere. Because we all know carbon heats, making the air hotter and so on.
Now, why is annual temps not a measure of global warming, if the air is getting hotter than the planet must be getting hotter, right? Well, the heating up is occuring but the major effect is on the melting ice caps.....like i said more water in those reserves are being released and cooling already cool oceans and cooling warm tropical oceans.
This causes changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Because temperature is a key factor in extreme weather.
"A 2001 report by the IPCC suggests that glacier retreat, ice shelf disruption such as that of the Larsen Ice Shelf, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, are being attributed in part to global warming"
The key part from above is that changes in precipitation patterns will occur....this is how it affects us. From then on with the irregular weather affects agriculture, ecosystems, villages and developments and so on.
"The newer IPCC Fourth Assessment Report summary reports that there is observational evidence for an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic Ocean since about 1970, in correlation with the increase in sea surface temperature, but that the detection of long-term trends is complicated by the quality of records prior to routine satellite observations. The summary also states that there is no clear trend in the annual worldwide number of tropical cyclones.
Additional anticipated effects include sea level rise of 110 to 770 millimeters (0.36 to 2.5 ft) between 1990 and 2100,[79] repercussions to agriculture, possible slowing of the thermohaline circulation, reductions in the ozone layer, increased intensity of hurricanes and extreme weather events,
lowering of ocean pH, and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. One study predicts 18% to 35% of a sample of 1,103 animal and plant species would be extinct by 2050, based on future climate projections. However, few mechanistic studies have documented extinctions due to recent climate change and one study suggests that projected rates of extinction are uncertain."
The ice caps are a very fragile ecosystem and thus are the first to be affected by global warming. We are not going to boil to death but we are going to die of thirst, drown in freak weather or starve.
By the time the regular less fragile ecosystems are affected by the one degree to 6 degree increase in temps we will be long gone and the grave stone will be under water.